Colombia-based environmental standard Cercarbono has approved its first methodology that project developers can use to generate voluntary biodiversity credits.
The certifier has given final approval to Savimbo’s Indicator Species Biodiversity Methodology (ISBM), which was initially released for public consultation in December.
“The methodology created by Savimbo is a significant advancement for our Indigenous communities,” stated Savimbo’s co-founder and Pijao tribal leader, Fernando Lezama.
“It is a simple, practical, and effective methodology developed by local people to benefit the health of the planet.”
Developed in the Colombian Amazon, the methodology was co-designed in collaboration with Indigenous Peoples representatives from 25 countries and 55 Indigenous nations living in high-biodiverse zones, aiming to provide them with conservation financing and direct access to markets.
The Cercarbono Biodiversity Certification Programme Protocol (CBCP), published in March, was the first finalised biodiversity framework to be released by one of the major standards, laying out guidelines for the creation and issuance of credits.
The protocol identifies 18 types of activities across terrestrial, freshwater, wetland, marine, urban, and mixed ecosystems.
Under the CBCP, the formula used to quantify the number of credits has two versions, one for restoration projects and another for conservation and preservation, with US-based Savimbo’s methodology selected as the first methodology for the latter.
METRIC AND UNITS
Units are area-based and correspond to one hectare of land conserved for one month, with measured integrity reported on a scale from 0-1, where full integrity is an ecosystem with every ecological niche available to, and filled by, native species.
As for the metric, the methodology uses a number of indicator species, broadly defined as species that help measure the environmental conditions of the habitat in which they live.
Savimbo’s projects have so far mostly focused on jaguars, though the methodology can apply to other species – rare, endangered, keystone, or umbrella species – regardless of the ecosystem or the geographic area, with some 20-30 species in each bioregion that can be selected.
“This methodology was designed to preserve biodiversity hotspots, threatened ecosystems with a high number of species found nowhere else on the planet and less than 30% of their original vegetation,” Savimbo said in a statement.
“Indigenous Peoples in every ecosystem monitor their forests with totemic animals. We just translated that to science and automated it, then made it open-source to really fix the climate justice problem,” Drea Burbank, CEO and co-founder of Savimbo, added.
CBCP allows for both area-based and non-area based projects, though a crediting calculation approach has only been finalised for the former, with developers of the latter type asked to propose strategies for their projects.
Savimbo’s units have also been selected by the International Carbon Registry to pilot its biodiversity programme, seeking to develop a framework to issue voluntary biodiversity credits, the company announced in June.
Other major standards, such as Verra, Plan Vivo, and Gold Standard, are also at various stages in the process of defining their own framework.
By Giada Ferraglioni – giada@carbon-pulse.com
** Click here to sign up to our twice-weekly biodiversity newsletter **
